Time SignatureWhen I introduce Beautiful Brown Eyes into the Beginner Jam repertoire, I play it in 3/4 time because I think it is one of the easiest songs to use for acquainting new jammers with playing in 3/4 time. Also, people from non-bluegrass backgrounds who are already familiar with the song are more likely to have heard it played in 3/4 time rather than in cut common time.

However, while most non-bluegrass recordings of Beautiful Brown Eyes are in 3/4 time rather than in cut common time, the opposite is true of bluegrass recordings of the song.

The first bluegrass version of Beautiful Brown Eyes, or rather Beautiful Blue Eyes (a common alteration of the title and the chorus lyrics in bluegrass versions of the song), that I ever heard was the Red Allen recording provided here. Apart from retaining 'brown' in place of 'blue', my cut time version of the song follows this recording closely.

My reasons for recycling Beautiful Brown Eyes as a song of the week for the Intermediate Jam are: 1) to draw attention to a much more standard way of playing the song as a bluegrass song than how it has usually been played at the jam up to this point, and 2) to help demonstrate how to convert a song from one time signature to another.

Time Signature ConversionBeautiful Brown Eyes is just one of many songs for which there are both 3/4 time and non-3/4 time recorded versions.

I believe the best way to get started with learning how to convert a song from one time signature to another is by listening to examples of the same song played in more than one time signature. For this reason, I have included youtube links for some of the examples given below.

The classic example of a bluegrass song played in both 3/4 time and in cut common time is Bill Monroe's 'Blue Moon Of Kentucky'. Bill originally recorded the song in 3/4 time. But after Elvis Presley recorded his non-3/4 time version of the song (which the Stanley Brothers later copied), Bill recorded it again, playing the first half of it in 3/4 time and the second half of it in cut common time.

Besides Beautiful Brown Eyes, there are two other songs on the current intermediate jam list for which I am familiar with both 3/4 and 2/2 versions: Down In A Willow Garden, which is most often played in 3/4 time and How Mountain Girls Can Love, which is almost always played in 2/2. I have only ever heard one 3/4 time version of the latter song: I was surprised at how well the song worked in 3/4 time, but I would strongly advise against trying to introduce a 3/4 time version of How Mountain Girls Can Love into a bluegrass jam, since all the standard well-known versions of the song are in 2/2.

Before I Met YouParadiseI'm Thinking Tonight Of The Old Folks (a.k.a. Dixie Home)Philadelphia LawyerI Never Will MarryDark As A Dungeon Amazing GraceWe Three Kings

Chord ProgressionJust a quick note that Beautiful Brown Eyes as I play it, and as played on the recordings provided here, does not use the Bury Me Beneath The Willow/Wreck Of The Old '97 progression, the most common chord progression in bluegrass, but uses the closely related, but far less common, progression:1144115511445511